Coming Home
by Tinkabelle21
Summary: Okay, this is just a short ficlet about Jack and Ana-Marie, a bit of a ramble on what their relationship truly is, how it would fit into their lives, staying true to their characters.


Okay, this is just a short ficlet about Jack and Ana-Marie, a bit of a ramble on what their relationship truly is, how it would fit into their lives, staying true to their characters.  
  
They aren't big gesture people.  
  
Disclaimer: Yep, I own nothing, sadly. But I have eyeliner just like Jack!  
  
Read and Review and I will write more Jack and Ana fun.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
Her own ship. That's what she had demanded, and Jack Sparrow had given her his word.  
  
His word, he thought blearily, a pirates word. Two years ago, no six months ago, Jack Sparrow's word meant nothing. Jack Sparrow could wheedle and whine his way out of any situation, but he was not to be trusted.  
  
Except now.  
  
Things were different now. He was different. Now his word meant something. People, naïve people, like Will and Elisabeth had trusted him. Replied on him. Made him feel like a real man, a good man, not just a scallywag for the gallows.  
  
And so he'd got Ana-Marie a ship, and watched her sail away. That's what a good man would have done.  
  
They still met in Tortugua. Captains, sharing a cup of ale in the dark hours, relating tales of their journeys. Sharing warnings about new shipwrecks, upset naval fleets, new pirate boats.  
  
At what point they became lovers again, Jack couldn't quite remember.  
  
But it felt like coming home.  
  
Hours stolen in the morning's before dawn, both half drunk, they had crawled back to her ship, it's wood creaking above their heads, she had taken the infamous Jack Sparrow back into her bed. And he felt the curve of her body beneath his fingers, the arch of her back.  
  
He loved that her skin tasted of salt and the sea, and sometimes it felt like he was making love to the beautiful sea herself. For Ana-Marie was as changeable, as intoxicating and dangerous as the ocean for Jack.  
  
And he was her tie to the world. Without him, she would have fallen the blade long ago. Few things fuelled Ana-Marie, but her hatred for him had kept her going, had kept her alive.  
  
And now her love did the same.  
  
Each time they met, they knew the moment were precious. Knew that this time together could be last time. He felt the scars and saw the bruises of the battles form across her body like a storyboard that only he could read. Each time, it was like doing inventory, checking for damage, gluing back the pieces.  
  
In the darkness they would whisper of fights, of plunder and pillaging, of the horizon and all that she entailed.  
  
Sometimes though, the fights were less successful. Burn marks from a bad raid. Cuts and bruises from navigating in a storm. Swords and daggers from fights left a patchwork of cuts on their bodies.  
  
. Jack shuddered when he found a new scar, a long thin slice across the base of Ana-Marie's spine. They didn't talk about these things, about her back or about the new cut Jack had across his lip. Jack had simply kissed her wrist when the dark purple, nearly black on her coffee coloured skin, pirates P was burnt on her.  
  
And if she wept, he held her together in the darkness until she stopped falling apart.  
  
They told stories each other the funny stories, the time Jack had fought a bonny pirate lass on the ocean, and she had sliced of the plaits on his beard. Ana-Marie laughed, showing Jack the bruises from passing out unconscious on top of her sheathed sword.  
  
Quietly, they would tell each other of the body bags, the pirates lost to the sea, dying fighting for them. They knew, without words, how easily that could become them. They knew that neither of them would live to a rich old age. Just as it was not Jack's future to become an old married man, neither was it Ana-Marie's. She told him quietly one evening that she could never have had children, even if she'd stayed on land. Jack had kissed her forehead, thinking how little the word barren had to do with this vibrant girl in his arms.  
  
Both had tasted the freedom that the horizon offered, and neither could give it up.  
  
She didn't need to take a lover. And there were plenty of wenches who would receive Jack with open arms and an open bed, especially in Tortugua. And yet, he found himself coming back to her, creating haunts together. Found himself trying to 'accidentally' be in port when she was.  
  
She didn't ask him to be true to her. Commitment for Jack Sparrows was another form of chains. She didn't clasp him in her arms, and vow to give up everything for him.  
  
What she loved about him, though she never say those words to him, was his potency, the way his mind worked that meant he could truly do anything. Her love for him was like a true sailors love for the sea, not about harnessing, but about marvelling. She could not cage him as simply as she could not change the north wind.  
  
Nor did she want to.  
  
Jack and Ana-Marie weren't the type to be showy with their love. They didn't have grand gestures, or open declarations of their love. No, they hands and touches spoke loudly enough, they didn't need words.  
  
Pirates live with death on their heels, whether they deny it or not. They fight it everyday, in their beds, in their work, in their battles. They bare the scars of these daily battles, across their faces, across their bodies.  
  
And one day, Jack knew, one of them would disappear. Inevitably lost to the waves.  
  
So they cherished these stolen hours, the moments were their bodies connected and flowed together with an unspoken love and powerful passion.  
  
Ana Marie, the lost pirate who all her life had been blown this way and that by fortune's wind, finally found a safe harbour. It was there in his arms.  
  
And in Ana-Marie's embrace, Jack felt what it was like for Will and Elisabeth, in their cosy life with their pure unblemished love.  
  
She felt like home for him. 


End file.
